Providence’s Tim Woulfe releases his debut 7″ via Apollonian Sound, the light and lovely “Joyce” »

Tim Woulfe – Joyce

Leonard Cohen vocals and a Microphones simplicity are always going to produce a winning combination for me, and “Joyce”, with Woulfe’s slightly wobbly, unstressed vocal delivery and straightforward three-chord song structure do it all very well. Its lack of complication, with the exception of the song’s well-layered middle and final fifths, put added focus on pretty, familiar lyrics like “I thought I felt the wind but it was only your breath / clutching my skin, finding new depths.”

Also, gotta give credit to a kid who writes a love song with semi-tangible James Joyce references: “The heaventree of stars hung with humid nightblue fruit.” – from Joyce’s Ulysses.

“Joyce” is from Tim Woulfe’s upcoming debut LP, The Uncouth Swain (itself a John Milton reference). Pick yourself up some highly limited, handcrafted vinyl here »

New Zealand’s Glass Vaults absolutely floored us in 2010 and a year later in 2011 with a pair of excellent freely released EPs, Glass and Into Clear, respectively. They’ve been quiet for a couple of years but recently came back with a complete stunner of a track called “Ancient Gates” that takes their brand of ebullient art rock to epic new levels. You don’t want to miss this one:

As much as the true definition might suggest, I’m not sold on the idea of a crescendo being all about volume, or simply filling the empty space with more of what’s already there. To me, great crescendos adapt as they grow. Bass and drums fill the voids above which lighter instruments and sounds simply hover. New sounds add confusion and excitement while those in the first half of the song fade in and out. There must be dozens of sounds in “Ancient Gates”, a masterful patchwork song with secrets ripe for uncovering. Song like this tend to be my favorites– as I learn to pick out the more hidden or whitewashed, the song’s personal meaning changes along with its literal structure. It’s the definition of exciting, interactive music.

If Glass Vaults released an LP filled with songs of this calibre, I’d have my album of the year.

Here’s a newly released single from AZ/LA duo Calvin Markus and Travis Bunn a.k.a. Dead Times. “Centuries” is head-spinning future-r&b of the most original sort, grown organically from earthy percussion as much as sped up vocal samples, and with their first single “Feel” this officially makes Dead Times two-for-two:

Dead Times – Centuries

Ridiculous.

If you aren’t too busy listening to the freshly streaming/leaked new Daft Punk album, this is fully deserving of your attention:

Listen to the whole unstoppable EP from Freeze-Tag here, and grab it on bandcamp in pay-what-you-want fashion »

I guess I would be abiding some sort of subconcious stereotype if I said, “Well, I did not know that music from the Grand Cayman sounded like this!” It’s an accurate statement all around, since singer/songwriter Natasha Kozaily has a unique style that fits somewhere between trips down the rabbit hole with Alice and guest appearances with Mickey on Fantasia. Whimsical and driving, but with rich layers and powerful voice to push it home.

As if the Gainesville scene, championing the likes of Hundred Waters, Levek, and Conveyor, needed another love child, but we’re not complaining. Morningbell actually could be the parental figures in this analogy, now on their sixth album with the upcoming Boa Noite, an eclectic indie rock record that stretches from Broken Social Scene to the Small Faces. “Yes Wonderful Things” is the album’s vibrant opening track, brimming with chipper orchestral bits and enough freneticism to churn our unusually cold spring into the summer we deserve:

After listening to this track repeatedly, I was trying to figure out what specifically was sticking with me. Was is inventive lyrics like “the roof of my mouth sprung a leak and secrets seep out when I speak”? Maybe the deliciously vintage sounding call and response of the song’s title? Maybe the immense production that overflows with horns, strings, bells, well paced drums and elated vocal harmonies? Well no, it’s not one of those, it’s all of them. “Yes Wonderful Things” is as addictive an indie rock song as you’ll find in 2013.

Preorder the vinyl here, limited to 200 copies »

I have no idea where these guys came from (Asheville, NC) or why no one has been written anything about them before (shame on y’all), but my ears and eager appetite for promising new music could care less about any of that. All that matters is Kovacs and the Polar Bear made their way into my headphones last week and left a lasting impression. Their track “Dandelion” is a true gem, with enough melody to cleanse your palette like a mouthful of ginger before shoving in a succulent slice of sonic sashimi. That’s an analogy for this band I’ll take to the bank, you don’t need a gastro-scientist or trendy restauranteur with a flair for copy to explain each nuance and coy bit of complexity swirling in your mouth, because it’s unnecessary. Verbiage, much like the last few sentences here, appeal to the imagination and other senses not needed to assist your taste-buds or (in this case) eardrums in understanding what they’re consuming. Not when it’s this easy and this good.

Kovacs and the Polar Bear – Dandelion

Ingredients: echoing keys, raunchy riffs, driving percussion, and deliciousness. Vibes akin to The Walkmen struck me at first but Kovacs are far more accessible and better than Hamilton Leithauser’s band. There’s a lot of potential here, with a memorable/shaky set of vocals and hints of Americana charm that can appeal to ears in Brooklyn as easily as those in Savannah. There’s more music to dive into right here and something tells me more than just my southern brethren in Asheville will be the only ones who know about this band for long.

Keeping with today’s theme of molasses-slow, euphoric, female-fronted dream pop, here’s Brooklyn-via-London duo Belle Mare with the lovely, haunting “The Boat Of The Fragile Mind” »

I tend to prefer schizophrenic, multi-layered compositions these days: the sort of music informed by the frenetic, overblown dissemination of information and culture that’s defined much of our globalized, connected world over the last twenty years. Perhaps that makes minimal gems like “The Boat Of The Fragile Mind” all the more compelling. It’s strangely disconcerting and comforting at the same time, with eerie-sweet vocal harmonies that swell the song’s otherwise empty space. “We could make it out alive,” Amelia Bushell croons, suggesting there’s a place for the delicate and intrapersonal in this world as much as the shared and interpersonal. An increasingly novel if not wholly foreign concept altogether.

Stream Belle Mare’s debut EP here »

Here’s a first listen from former Floridian (now Bostonian) Emily Reo‘s upcoming summer album. “Happy Birthday” is from that Elestial Sound compilation that everyone’s been talking about. Love me some swooning, waltzy dream pop:

There’s some terrific stuff brewing in the center of the continental United States, something I found out first hand when attending Middle of the Map Fest. Kansas City has a crazy close-knit music scene and to say it’s thriving might be an understatement. The problem (or maybe this is beauty of it more than anything else) is that not many people outside of KC seem to know what they’re brewing. Soft Reeds were a group I came across during my brief visit, impressed with their choleric rhythmic rock that this group makes. They’ve got a gusto like Gang of Four but with richer overtones and vacillating vocals that are velvet enough to really bellow given the right atmosphere.